I am a tiler and plumber as a second career, having a pension from my previous employer.
I want to know if I can claim for the following items as expenses on my tax return.
Liability Insurance
Training
New computer at home
car mileage to jobs
Tools purchased for the jobs.
Telephone
Stationery
Have I forgotten anything?

Tony Harris of ContractorFinancials replied: "An obvious source of additional tax relief would be to make pension contributions. Indeed you could , in effect , use any surplus pension income from the previous employment to cut your current tax bills and build up further pension funds for when you do finally hang up your toolbelt."

Barry Roback from accountants, JSA, replied: "Claiming tax relief is part science (governed by tax legislation) and part art (the way in which tax legislation is interpreted). For that reason, it is impossible to produce a definitive list of allowable and non-allowable expenses, although at the two extremes, certain things are obvious.

"This is what you pay for when you ask an accountant to help you with your business accounts and tax. I am not suggesting that I will not answer your question, just that it is impossible to do so comprehensibly without knowing much more about you and your individual circumstances.

"That said, everything on your list looks OK on the surface, other than perhaps training. Any training you undertake (to be tax allowable) must be in the performance of your duties rather than to increase your chance of getting future work. Therefore, as a plumber, you would probably get the cost of say Corgi certification, but not say a French language course. "

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Susie Hughes
The Editor © Hardhatter 2007